There’s a lot going on in the world, so we’ve made it a little bit easier for you to keep up. Here are the trending news stories everyone will be talking about today:
1. The charges fit the crime
Charleston massacre suspect Dylann Roof is now facing federal hate crime charges. Roof brutally murdered nine people in a racially motivated shooting at a church in South Carolina last month. The murders sparked a national debate over both the Confederate flag and our need for gun control. Roof faces up to life in prison or the death penalty as a result of the charges. — ABC
More: Charleston resident describes how the city is healing from a tragic event
2. Get it together, Congress
Trustees of the Social Security disability-insurance program warn the program is about to go broke in 2016 unless Congress does something to save it. This isn’t the first warning, but apparently Congress is that car on the freeway that knows the lane is ending in five miles but waits until the last second to get over and then flips you the bird. Democrats want to use tax revenue from another fund to cover the shortfall, but Republicans are more concerned about disability fraud. It’s safe to say things will probably get worse before they get better. — MarketWatch
3. This is huge
A panel appointed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recommended raising the minimum wage to $15 for fast-food workers. The new wage would be a 70 percent raise for employees making the current minimum wage of $8.75 an hour. Protests to raise wages for fast-food workers began in New York City three years ago and have led to wage increases all over the country, so the recommendation represents a huge victory for the people who originally started the movement. — New York Times
More: #Strikefastfood protest spreads to more than 100 U.S. cities
4. Exclamation points!
Bill Simmons, popular sports columnist and TV personality, has inked a new deal with HBO to star on a weekly talk show as well as produce video podcasts and documentaries. Simmons was dumped by ESPN earlier this year after 14 years with the network and has been looking for a new home ever since. He called HBO “the single best place for creative people in the entire media landscape,” so it will be exciting to watch where this goes. — Hollywood Reporter
5. Baby, now they’ve got “Bad Blood”
Piers Morgan weighed in on the raging feud between Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj with a racist, hate-filled rant, calling Minaj a “stroppy little piece of work whose video wasn’t as good as Taylor Swift’s.” You’ll recall Swift and Minaj dominated headlines yesterday after Nicki tweeted her indignation at MTV for excluding her from the nominees for Video of the Year, and Taylor took the tweets personally. — Daily Mail
More: Katy Perry tweets out a sick burn at Taylor Swift
6. Hold on to your scrunchies
Popular ’90s store Limited Too is officially making a comeback. At its peak, the store was the “it” brand for tween girls who loved butterfly clips and Bonne Bell Lip Smackers. The brand’s parent company says it’s in talks for a fall 2016 rollout and has plans to open 200 stores in the next five years. No word yet on what the new styles will look like, but we hope they pretty please make them in adult sizes. — The New York Post
More: 8 Male stars from our ’90s childhood who now gross us out
7. You can learn a lot of things from the flowers…
Viral photos reportedly show a patch of deformed daisies growing near the Fukushima disaster site. The plant went into meltdown mode in 2011 following a magnitude 9.0 earthquake that triggered a tsunami in northeastern Japan. Recently, photos of “mutant rabbits” and twisted vegetables near the site have also made the rounds. — MSN
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